A common problem for people who park their vehicle in parking lots adjacent to other parked vehicles is that the opening and closing of the doors of adjacent vehicles often hit parked vehicles of other people thereby causing chipped paint and minor dents. People with new vehicles, newly painted vehicles or merely those who take very good care of their vehicles are particularly sensitive to this problem.
Various devices have been devised for attempting to solve the aforementioned problem. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,610,684 to Richter proposes to attach a pad to the door handle of a vehicle. One of the problems with this device is that in most newer vehicles, the handles are somewhat recessed, thereby making it difficult, if not impossible, to attach the Richter device thereto.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,738,695 to McBee proposes to use telescoping tubes suspended from the top of windows for protection purposes. A major problem with this device is installation and storage, especially since it is quite bulky.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,014,583 proposes to use some permanently attached brackets on the inside of the vehicle for suspending from straps which hold a vehicle body protection device in place. A major problem with such device is that very few people would be willing to permanently attach brackets to their vehicle. Furthermore, in alternate embodiments the attachment process appears to be extremely cumbersome since it is attached by rolling the window up and down to adjust the length of straps used to suspend the protection device.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,530,519 to Marshall purposes to use an extremely complicated device with an electric motor which rolls up a shield when not in use. Such device is believed to be too complicated and expensive to be practical.
Accordingly, there exists a need for a vehicle body protection device which is inexpensive to produce, easy to use, and easy to store when not in use.